Twenty Blue Devils

Nick looked up dully, angrily, as if he didn't comprehend.

Rudy, more nonplussed than John had ever seen him before, opened his mouth so suddenly that his lips popped. “Not an— you don't mean...they wouldn't really—they wouldn't—'

'Rudy, don't be dumb,” Nick said with uncharacteristic harshness. “What the hell would the Mob have against Brian? He wasn't even around back then.'

'Yes, but didn't John just say—'

'I don't care what John said. If they have a beef with anybody, it's me—not Brian.'

'Now let's wait just a minute here,” Nelson said. “Rudy may very well have a valid point.'

'How the hell—” Nick began.

'Who prepared the new affidavit?” Nelson asked. “Would someone care to tell me that? Who did all the work?'

'Ah, that's ridiculous,” Nick said.

'What do you mean, new affidavit?” John asked. “Now what are you talking about?'

But Nelson backed off. “Well, I'm not really suggesting that it had anything to do with—'

'What new affidavit?” John repeated.

It was Maggie who explained. When the gangsters’ retrial had come up four years before, Nick had been asked by the U.S. attorney's office to make a new deposition to include some elements that hadn't been in the first one. Nick was eager to comply (over Nelson's objections), but was having a hard time finding the data he needed. People had died, firms had gone out of business, old records were impossible to locate. After three frustrating weeks of letters and telephone calls, he still didn't have the vital pieces. That was when Brian, who had been trying to introduce things like computers, modems, and e-mail to his still-reluctant father-in-law, had put together the needed information as a demonstration of what the new online technology could do. It had taken him two and a half hours.

Nick had been bowled over, converted on the spot. The Paradise plantation's changeover to the new technology had begun the next week. And the preparation of the affidavit had been turned over to Brian, lock, stock, and barrel. Nick hadn't done much more than sign it when it was finished. And it had been that affidavit more than anything else, so they understood, that had sunk the notorious three G-men all over again.

'Yeah, but if Nick was the one who signed it,” John pointed out, “how would they even know Brian had anything to do with it?'

'I'm not arguing the point, John,” Nelson said. “I just thought it ought to be mentioned. You're the one who said you think there's something fishy.'

Another leaden silence dropped onto them. Cups clicked in saucers. Chairs creaked.

'I'll tell you what I think,” John said at last. “I think we ought to have his body exhumed and then get it examined by somebody who knows what he's doing. Then let's see where we are.'

'Oh, my Lord, that's horrible!” said Maggie. “It'd just about kill Therese.'

'It wouldn't kill her,” John said patiently. “If somebody murdered Brian, she'd want to know.'

'So would we all,” Nick said; his first words in a long time.

'But if he was out there in the heat for a week, there's not going to be much left, John. Some bones, maybe.'

'I know. It'd take a forensic anthropologist.'

Nelson snorted. “Of which there are dozens in Papeete.'

'I was thinking of bringing somebody in from the States.'

'You know somebody?” Nick asked.

'Yeah, I do. The best there is.'

Nick took a while to reply. He sat rotating his cup in its saucer and staring down at its untouched contents: Tahitian Blue Devil, the highest-priced coffee in the world, bar none. At last he looked up and spoke.

'Do it,” he said softly.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter 8

* * * *

High in the ink-black sky over the South Pacific, sprawled at his ease in a roomy Air New Zealand first-class seat, with a first-class meal of duckling with orange sauce comfortably inside him and a stemmed crystal glass of Courvoisier at his elbow, Gideon Oliver was having second thoughts.

He didn't like exhumations. And not merely on aesthetic grounds; that went without saying. More important, exhumations were traumatic experiences for family and friends; especially for family. Digging a corpse out of its grave for a belated postmortem was a sure way to rip open the wounds that had begun to heal when the body was laid down in the first place. And that never failed to make him uncomfortable.

Besides, he had a hard-to-shake conviction that it was all going to be in aid of nothing. The string of accidents Brian Scott had gotten caught in might make one wonder, but accidents did frequently happen. In strings. And what credible reason was there to think they weren't accidents? Would anyone in his right mind try to murder someone by knocking down a shed in a windstorm?